Here's what I understand: Back in 2003, Celigia contracted Zuckerberg to code for his website which was not related to Facebook. Celigia and Zuckerberg do not dispute that they had a contract. Zuckerberg does not have a copy of this contract. Celigia says his version of the contract which he "found" last year says that he (Celigia) is entitled to 85% of Facebook because the clauses of the contract which say Celigia got a percentage of Facebook for every day Zuckerberg was late with his work. Zuckerberg was late completing his work.

I found it suspicious that Celigia forgot for years that he owned a majority of Facebook. The other thing that is suspicious is the contract calls for Zuckerberg to surrender ownership of Facebook if he was late. Normally penalties are assessed in monetary values because Celigia is sacrificing hard cash for ownership of a company not related to his business nor guaranteed to bring in future money. It is also not clear whether Celigia knew about the existence of Facebook as it was much smaller back.

I found it suspicious that Celigia forgot for years that he owned a majority of Facebook. The other thing that is suspicious is the contract calls for Zuckerberg to surrender ownership of Facebook if he was late. Normally penalties are assessed in monetary values because Celigia is sacrificing hard cash for ownership of a company not related to his business nor guaranteed to bring in future money. It is also not clear whether Celigia knew about the existence of Facebook as it was much smaller back.

It's hard to believe that Zuckerberg acted in the way that Ceglia claimed. It's not a question of character- Zuckerberg's dealings with the Winklevoss twins suggest he's a tough businessman, maybe even a ruthless one- it's one of competency. Whatever you think of the guy as a person, he managed to start a company in his dorm room and turn it into an internet giant valued at tens of billions of dollars, one that even Google has struggled to compete with. So whatever else he may or may not be, Zuckerberg's cl

And you'd have to be a complete idiot to sell half interest in your taco stand for a thousand dollars, let alone half your internet startup, unless you thought the company had zero chance of succeeding.

Your understanding is mostly correct, with the exception of one detail: Celigia lost in court once, and only after having his case thrown out for total lack of evidence, did he then "remember" this contract and come back with it for another try.

That reminds me of a case I saw where the two attorney's argued over what something in a photograph represented and whether the area was in a uniform color or not. They argued for hours until they noticed that the former first year associate of one of them (the one, incidentally, that wanted to use the picture and claimed that it was not uniform in color) was shaking his head at his desk. The judge asked him why he was shaking his head and he responded that it was obviously a JPEG artifact caused by bad compression. The judge looked a little perplexed and asked to to explain it again. He did by analogy to a fax machine. The judge threw out the picture as not the best evidence AFTER HE LOOKED AND COMPARED A FAXED DOCUMENT TO THE ORIGINAL.

Ceglia’s lawyers are claiming the “authentic contract” is shielded from use in the suit because it is designated as “confidential” under the rules of an agreement between the two parties. Facebook is asking the federal judge overseeing the case in New York to overrule that designation.

Damn Zuckerberg, it must be hard to actually *ask* people if you can change their priva... I mean, overrule their confidentiality settings.

The tale of the contract that cannot be enforced, for it contains the the name that must not be spoken, it is written on the parchment that cannot be seen, and was signed with the pen of ink that does not dry, by mysterious and powerful figures in a darkened room on a moonless night at the stroke of midnight!

That's how the "game" is played. It's not like some judge is going to say "well, this evidence means that 30% of the company is now his". This is the same as the Winklevy twins -- they were somewhere within farting distance of zuckerberg when he started stealing peoples' informat....erm, I mean, started facebook, and they want cash. So far at least 2 parties have managed to get hush-money out of him, so why not try again?

Strictly speaking, this doesn't contradict the headline. The headline merely states that "We Have Proof Ceglia's Contract Is Fake", it doesn't say "and we have it right here". The proof could be on Mars, for all we know. They just said "We Have Proof", they didn't say what the location of the proof is.

Seriously though, facebook had to respond somehow. Not saying anything would have seemed suspicious. Even if this is just an ad hominem ("Facebook insists Ceglia is a known con artist. Ceglia, as has been we

They couldn't care less. They want clicks, and this headline achieved that purpose. When they got the claim from Ceglia, it just gave them an excuse to stick a microphone in facebook's...um..."face", and await their reaction. It doesn't matter if the reaction made sense, just that there is a reaction, which they can now post. I'm sure that if you posed the question to them, they'd say "it's our job/responsibility to report".

Because they actually have the evidence. The issue is that it can't be released because they agreed the contents of his computers was confidential. They're now asking for that finding to be overturned so they can release the documents.

They're now asking for that finding to be overturned so they can release the documents.

It looks like Facebook's lawyers found a document that is better for Facebook in an area that was off limits for discovery as agreed by both parties. It's going to be sad if this case turns on Ceglia outlawyering Facebook over discovery. We'll see how it goes in the hearing.

Lawyer: The truth is really damaging to my case!Probably, but you never know. Funny thing how evidence can look very damning until related facts come out. I absolutely hate it when litigants drop stuff like this to the press because it gives the appearance that the case will be easily won... which usually does not follow in the courtroom (see the SCO Novell dustup). If you have the upper hand far better to just be quiet, wait until AFTER the hearing on the 17th and then have a little press conference AFTER

Presumably the way Facebook lawyers are hinting, the evidence was found on the HDs that Celigia had to turn over. However, Celigia is marking whatever evidence as "confidential" and FB wants this designation changed so that they can release it public. I assume that Celigia left another copy of this contract on his HD that is significantly different than the version he released publicly.

Isn't it interesting that whenever there's a new development in the "facebook chronicles", somebody "finds" some new documents? It's like this is some archeological expedition, and every now and then one of the people carefully excavating the digsite finds a piece of pottery and says "Hey guys! Look what I found! It's got writings on it!". Then facebook has to defend itself, so it sends its own archeologists to the deep dark dungeons of their corporate basement and they come back with a carbon-dated bit of

Why the nerve of asking profits from investments! Don't investors know they're only entitled to profits if the profits are very small?Assuming the increasing unlikeliness of Ceglia actually having invested.

I don't see why people care about Facebook's legal battles anymore. It's not going to really change anything one way or another. Facebook wins, then there might be an appeal, if they lose there might be an appeal, and either way it's about money that none of us will ever see, and a decision that will not effect our lives in any way significant or insignificant.

I find it strange that, if Ceglia forged the version of the contract on which he is relying in court, he kept around old versions or word processor change logs or whatever it is that Facebook has found. He doesn't seem to be the kind of naive non-technical user who wouldn't think of such things.

Maybe Celigia isn't extremely tech savvy enough to know that deleting a file doesn't mean the file is gone forever or that caches can exist or that he had another copy in a different folder he forgot about.

It's pretty obvious (to me, at least) that what Facebook has done is found the *original* contract, which proves that his is a fake, as long as they can prove that their copy is the original.

So they want his hard drive, probably to show that the date modified on the file is too recent to be original.

This is not highly techy... changing CMOS time, bootinginto a runtime CD linux and touch[ing] the file... or havingthe thought of changing the CMOS time before creating thefile... would probably obviate that issue.

Under Jewish contract law, only one copy of any contract may be produced, and it must be written in an extremely strict, tamper-proof manner. This is intended to prevent just this type of contract-forgery claim.

I have a dedicated file tote for all important legal contracts with my signature on them. I would think anyone with half a brain would keep copies of something as important as a business contract. WTF?

What do you expect from a country that went apeshit over the question whether a prez got a blowjob in the oval office?

That is not what the issue was, the issue was that he lied under oath.

Another way to look at it: He should never have been put in the position where he could have denied it. Seriously - who cares if he did or didn't. It's not like he campaigned on moral purity. They leave that to the Republicans - who when caught with their pants down carry on as normal.

Another way to look at it: He should never have been put in the position where he could have denied it.

You know his lying under oath had nothing to do with Republicans or politics, right? It was in a sexual harassment suit. He lied under oath to prevent a woman he previously mistreated from getting justice after the Supreme Court told him being the President of the United States does not make one immune from civil suits.

More importantly, then-Governor Clinton shouldn't have put himself in a position where he could be accused of sexual assault, which led to his lying about a blowjob while testifying to a grand jury about the sexual assault charge. It wasn't just a blowjob or a lie about it, it was deception in a sexual assault case in front of a grand jury.

Of the accusation? No. Of enough evidence to convene a grand jury? Sure - don't go into hotel rooms with single women and ask your guard detail to take a walk... Don't do it several times so that half a dozen women all report the same thing.

Well, in the case being discussed, yes, he simply could have kept his pants zipped. It's not like it would have required some enormous sacrifice on his part. He's the chief executive of the most powerful country in the world, and he makes himself and his policies vulnerable because he has to have sex with some intern in the White House. Whatever you think about his policies, it was just plain dumb.

Talk about blind faith in a shattered concept. Here's to hoping the depths of Obama's incompetence don't transcend Jimmy Carter's.

I note, with interest, that while you bring up several valid points and things I am very concerned about myself, you are making assumptions that the grandparent's author has stated that (s)he doesn't believe any of those things h(im/er)self.

So, your post is simply a distraction from the actual point, and actually about your own issues, and has nothing to do with the grandparent post at all. This makes you look like a rabid idiot. And so I strongly question a few of the things you talk about and provide no d

I guess a lot of Slashdot readers would like nothing better than to see Facebook fade away into history like MySpace, Geocities and whats-its-name. Since it's based in the USA, contracts and lawyers have a pretty good chance of making it happen.

I guess a lot of Slashdot readers would like nothing better than to see Facebook fade away into history like MySpace, Geocities and whats-its-name.

Wait a minute...Geocities was great! The rest is shit, though, you're right about that.

And to lead this thread entirely off topic, does anyone remember how this BBS style commercial software for the Mac was called that people could use for free to meet in sort of "chat rooms" (on a central server) and trade pirated software? It's height was about the same time as Geocities. I just can't remember the name of it and was wondering what happened to this company. Is it still around?

When I worked Mac tech suport in the early-to-mid 90's we used to say in the workshop "Mr Hotline is my friend", it was great for getting install images of software when rebuilding computers for customers who had 'lost' their original disks.

1. I shouldn't have to2. Google remembers the login to plus and uses it across all services. This means I also have to manually log-out which also forcibly logs me out of sites like youtube. This becomes a giant inconvenience

Obama produced a legitimate birth certificate back before he was elected. The problem was people refused to believe him or the State of Hawaii that it was legitimate because they couldn't accept that he might be elected as President for their own personal reasons. Even now some would rather believe in a huge conspiracy that everything has been faked rather than accept that he was legitimately elected.

No, he produced a certificate of live birth. These are provided to anyone, and you can get them saying you were born wherever.

Saying words in a different order does not make them a different thing. A 'certificate of live birth' is, indeed, a 'live birth certificate'.

In fact, almost no government certificate at all, says 'X certificate'. They mostly say 'certificate of X'. Go look at a marriage certificate [google.com] if you don't believe me. The fact it says words in the 'wrong order' does not make it not a 'birth

That is literally what it is saying, in English you can put the words in either order. A 'birth certificate' is 'certificate of birth'. Anyone who argues otherwise is simply too dumb to be allowed to comment politically, and probably should be in some sort of home for the mentally incompetent.

That's not what people were saying. They were demanding a Certificate of Live Birth, not a Certification of Live Birth. Those are two different things. Both are valid 'birth certificates' according to Hawaiian law,

If a facsimile of the authentic contract is released, Ceglia and his lawyer know that billions of dollars can buy a lot of witnesses and blood oaths that the contract was merely a unproven copy of one of the hundreds of decoys that Zuckerberg could reproduce --- right down to old Mrs. Crenshaw who taught him history in the third grade and was a decorated nurse who saved the lives of 12 people from a bombed schoolhouse in WW2.

Your entire argument hinges on the assumption that Ceglia DOES have the original contract. (And hasn't modified it.) Zuckerberg just contested that assumption. You're not allowed to assume it any more. Proof is required from one side or the other.

And really - you're so confident that Ceglia can convince all these people to commit perjury for these billions that he has, and you completely ignore the fact that Zuckerberg also has billions?

What on earth do you think he'll do if Ceglia produces a fake contract,

The contents of his hard drive are designated as confidential, because they may contain correspondence with his lawyers which is legally privileged, and lots of other information which is not relevant to the case at hand, such as his Internet Explorer favourite sites list and his photo collection.

You're misunderstanding the situation. Ceglia was forced by court order to turn over all of his hard drives. These hard drives could potentially contain private information not related to the case. So, Ceglia's lawyers have say over what is confidential. The facebook team in charge of looking through them has to check with Ceglia before they can use any of it. And so Ceglia has so far declared that 100% of everything is confidential. Even stuff that the Facebook team is saying is related to the case,

Let's not forget that any evidence that one side brings into court, must be shared with the other side in advance of the case. A contract in this case is evidence that supports the claim that Ceglia is entitled to ownership.

Zuckerberg's lawyers may try to refute the evidence in court.

In any case, if the contract is legit and Zuckerberg didn't retain a copy of it, then he's is more the fool. If Ceglia's claim is proven false, then this battle will likely soon come to an end...... until something else magic